Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 14

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 10

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Archive 12

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Welcome sign

I took a picture of a sign when driving into Mount Morris that reads "Welcome to Mount Morris NY - Home of Pledge of Allegiance - Founded 1794". - Indeed on this page it shows "Francis Bellamy, author of the Pledge of Allegiance was born there."

Would this be something we would add to this page? And if so what is the next step? Upload it somewhere and update this with the link? I have a full version (8MP). JHolicky (talk) 15:56, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Realized after I wasn't posting to the actual link. I need to spend more time and review the WikiProject Cities concept. JHolicky (talk) 15:59, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Message left on Jholicky's talkpage. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 18:10, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Geography / History ordering

Having worked on a fair number of city and settlement articles over the 8 years I've been a Wikipedian, I have come to wonder why we recommend that the History section precedes the Geography section. Clearly (physical) geography is often a heavy influence on the history of a place and, as a consequence I find myself having to write about the geography of a place in the history section, in order to explain the history, or putting in clumsy and hard to read forward references.

Changing the order of these two sections would remove this need, or enable a much briefer description referring back to the description in the preceding section. As physical geography is rarely dependent on history, this would not introduce the opposite problem. Obviously that isn't true for other branches of geography, but generally WP covers these in other sections (demographics, economy, transport, etc).

So would it be a good idea to change the recommendation to have geography first?. Obviously this would leave us with lots of articles in the old order, but I don't see that as a huge problem. They could be left to gradually change as they are worked on, or even to stay as they are. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 13:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

(Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Settlements: Article structure -- chris_j_wood (talk) 14:01, 19 November 2012 (UTC))

Having history first is more logical, though people do not need to either read or write the article in the section order, and are free to move around the sections. Very few people actually read an article from top to bottom anyway. Most readers read just the lead, then the next highest group read the lead and one or more sections, depending on what they are interested in. Having History as the first section is an established listing that experienced readers will be familiar with in a variety of article topics: companies - BAE Systems; art - The Four Stages of Cruelty; architecture - Michigan State Capitol; schools - The Avery Coonley School; etc. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:29, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Generally, while history and geography are linked, it will vary in degreee from place to place. If Geography has a really significant role in the history, than it makes sense to explain those two things together. Thus, one could just somewhat shorten the subsequent "geography" section, where alot of pertinent geo-historical facts have already been covered in history. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:57, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Chris Wood that I also like to see geography ahead of history. But it appears that we can decide this on a case-by-case basis, so it seems that the section order is not written in stone. -- P 1 9 9 ✉ 18:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for input for move suggestion @ Prypiat

I've started a RfM on a page under this WikiProject.

Briefly: The suggestion is to move Prypiat -> Pripyat. The town in the Chernobyl Exlcusion Zone is much more predominantly known as with the Pripyat spelling.

I would just move this myself, but the has come up before, and there's a small amount of back-and-forth editing on the age, so I thought an RfM best.

Input very welcome. Discussion here: Talk:Prypiat#RFM to Pripyat (with better justification & references) --Cooper⁴²(Talk)(Contr) 03:38, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Castle town

FYI, talk:Castle town has a discussion on what the coverage of this article should be. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 07:22, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

2000 U.S. Census data

Has a consensus been established for policy regarding outdated census numbers in city articles? For example, most U.S. city articles which have been updated with the 2010 demographic information replace/remove the 2000 numbers. However, some articles keep both sets of numbers, and attempts to remove the 2000 Census info after the article is updated with 2010 demographics are reverted.--Chimino (talk) 09:26, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know where it has been discussed before, but I run a bot that updates pages and I was informed during the application process to run it that putting the 2000 census data into a subsection was desired over deleting it. At first I thought it was kind of pointless, but I've warmed up to the idea, especially for the huge number of pages that have virtually nothing in them but auto generated content. It allows users to compare the data over two censuses and see any trends that might be occurring.Jamo2008 (talk) 15:57, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems pointless to me too, and a bit clunky, but it does make sense for the pages which have no other content (usually small towns/unincorporated communities).--Chimino (talk) 00:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I know that this is an old discussion, but I agree of the benefit of retaining 2000 Census data. Even in articles with additional content, the 2000 data provides the ability to compare, contrast and identify changes in relevant data, as Jamo2008 noted above. As I see it, the articles are better off with the data than without it, and keeping two census years worth of data on a rolling basis seems to make sense. Alansohn (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

FA review for Detroit

All's in the title : Wikipedia:Featured article review/Detroit/archive1. Thanks for your attention, Esprit Fugace (talk) 20:14, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Category:FA-Class_WikiProject_Cities_articles_all_leave_out_basic_information.

I'm sorry, I think that every FA-class city article I've looked at leaves out basic information that would make me oppose them at GA, let alone FA. I've raised the subject for review. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 16:22, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Black Rock, Buffalo, New York

There is currently a discussion taking place at the above page which may be of interest to members of this project. Gtwfan52 (talk) 18:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Percent of households with kids

As I've been updating US places to the 2010 census data I've been seeing a lot of confusion about which value should be used for the standard boilerplate sentence "There were X households out of which Y% had children under the age of 18 living with them", and in turn this is making me confused about which value I should be using. When you look at the data the census provides there is a entry called "With own children under 18 years" which is the value some people are using and then there is a entry called "Households with individuals under 18 years" that other people are using. These two numbers are only the same for places with a very small population. I believe the difference is that the second value accounts for situations similar to a grandparent raising their grandchild or people who do foster care, and the first value is the % of households with a parent raising their kids. I originally used the first value, but have since switched to the second one and changed the old pages I had edited to the second value as well. I feel that the sentence implies all households so it shouldn't just be the percentage of family households with kids, but am I mistaken is believing this and using that value? As I said before I've seen other editors using both values so is there a standard on which one is correct? Jamo2008 (talk) 20:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Here is an example for both cases, I did not write the 2010 census section for either one of these pages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Farmingdale,_Maine&oldid=530922121 This is an older version, I changed the value this morning and it was after doing that I started to worry that I could be wrong about which value I was using, but as you can see it uses the 28.8%, which is the value for "With own children under 18 years".
Corvallis, Oregon uses the "Households with individuals under 18 years" value. Jamo2008 (talk) 20:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Error correction re: Calcium, NY article

In the Demographics section, the first line in the last paragraph (concerning median family income) reads, "...median income for a family is 3 cows, 7 goats and 29 sheep."

I edited this page last night, and the bot kicked it out. I protested the bot's choice but it seems to want the upper hand! Any chance a human on your staff could rewrite that line to help raise the article's credibility?

Thanks!

97.89.62.71 (talk) 13:31, 8 January 2013 (UTC)Mark Mattoon, 01/08/2013

PS. Please understand that I love Wikipedia!

I reverted the vandalism. In the future, you should revert vandalism rather than commenting about it in the body of the article. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 22:51, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Boston FAR

I have nominated Boston for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. ELEKHH^T 13:58, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Financial capital of the world

There is a discussion on whether any city should be described as the 'financial capital of the world' at Talk:World_financial_capital. Because of a limited number of editors, we are struggling to come to a consensus about anything, so we would warmly welcome and encourage any editors from this project to take part. Regards, --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:34, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Said discussion is on a talk page with no actual article page attached to it. I'm not really sure exactly what the debate is about? The Earth has no official "financial capital". Anyone referring to a financial capital is just media tossing around some arbitrary, self-designated title, in the same way that the Weather Channel arbitrarily decided to call the latest snowstorm "Nemo". London and New York could probably both call themselves the "financial capital of the world" in a huge, high stakes, dick waving contest, but the rest of the world doesn't really care. Maybe the Chinese do, though, because Shanghai is moving up, and Hong Kong is pretty established, too. Perhaps a better solution is to forego assigning a title like "THE Financial Capital of the World" and designate something like "global financial centers", which would allow more than one city to fit the designation. WTF? (talk) 03:01, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

In the discussion there I only see talk about whether New York or London would be the capital (or both). To me it is not clear what it would add in addition to the article Financial centre, which is an overview of several rankings. I could see it being a worthwhile addition if there was a historic overview as well, which would mean that there would not be a choice of only one city to list there. CRwikiCA (talk) 12:39, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

If the dispute is over "financial centre", then I say that London can be the capital of improperly-spelled "financial centres", and New York can be the capital of properly-spelled "financial centers". =) WTF? (talk) 15:31, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

And, of course Financial centres is a rather useless overlap with Global Cities. Ah, well. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

City squares

Hi, can someone advise whether there is an infobox template appropriate to use with a city square? Shahbagh Square currently uses Infobox Civil Conflict, which is not appropriate for the page about the place. Thanks. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:11, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

List of cities and towns in Russia by population

This is a courtesy note to inform the participants of this WikiProject of a discussion currently taking place at Talk:List of cities and towns in Russia by population. A suggestion has been made to remove the entities with the population of fewer than 100,000 from the list and to rename the article. Additionally, it was proposed to replace the reference (currently the official Census results) with an English-language list hosted on the http://citypopulation.de website (a discussion thread regarding the merits of that source is open at WP:RS/N#City Population). Additional input would be welcome.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 11, 2013; 16:14 (UTC)

Peer review of Giffnock

Hello WP:Cities.

I've recently submitted a settlement article I've been working on for a peer review: Giffnock. If any of you are able to take a glance over it and point out some areas for improvement I'd greatly appreciate it. Cheers, Cabe 6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 17:13, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Residents section instead of References

In New Vineyard, Maine the footnote section was called "Residents", so I fixed it following Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Standard appendices and footers. Later I noticed that there are several cities with the footnote section called "Residents": can I fix them? -- Basilicofresco (msg) 09:55, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Go ahead, in these cases it clearly is an error that should be fixed. CRwikiCA (talk) 09:14, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Dutch municipalities

The WikiProject Dutch municipalities is active again. CRwikiCA (talk) 21:15, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

US largest city templates up for deletion

{{Largest cities and metro areas of the United States}} & {{Largest cities of the United States}} & {{Largest cities of California}} have been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 03:09, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

{{Largest cities of New Hampshire}} has also been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 04:34, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

And tens more have shown up at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 April 13 -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 05:31, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment

Your attention is called to this section, Use Mapping L.A. as reliable source?, which could use your expert input. GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:03, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

It is my understanding that one of Celoron de Blainville's lead plates (claiming the area for France) was found in Celoron, NY; hence the name of the village. If this is true, this should be added to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrstewart (talk • contribs) 17:08, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for Comment; Istanbul's history and the city infobox

Should Istanbul's pre-Byzantine history be mentioned in the city's infobox? Newer research shows that Istanbul's historic peninsula had been inhabited longer than previously thought (newspaper article: [1]; abstract of the journal article [2]). Government of Istanbul also says the city is older than what the current infobox states [3]. Basically, should this change be made in the article [4]? Some editors are opposing this change, based on tertiary sources such as encyclopedias, [5] which predate newer research. Note that no one is suggesting removing anything from the current infobox, just adding more information for a more complete portrayal of city's history.
See: Talk:Istanbul#RFC Cavann (talk) 21:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Article about Iquitos to be expanded

The article about Iquitos on Wikipedia in English could be expanded with data of Iquitos in Wikipedia in Spanish. The article in Spanish has been expanded with a lot of information and could be translated to be put in the article in English. I was adding information for some time, but I realized that it would need help to nourish the article about the city, including its sub-articles. I placed a maintenance template above the lead stating that the article requires translation from Spanish. --Percy Meza (talk) 21:25, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Largest cities of the United Kingdom

{{Largest cities of the United Kingdom}} has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 23:33, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

File:Cervinara-Stemma.png

File:Cervinara-Stemma.png has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 00:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Updating of maps with newer data

I am here to inform you of this discussion regarding Arkyan's 2007 maps of US cities. That will be all. — TORTOISE WRATH 01:07, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

It's so nice to talk on the talk page !!Good communication !! But speaking and listening are better ways to communicate !!!! Don't you think so ?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.101.126.194 (talk) 20:38, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC: Colour of weatherboxes

There is a discussion and a vote happening at the weatherbox to determine which colours should be used. Since different cities use the template with different colours (green or blue), there should be a discussion on it in order to reach a consensus, given that this template is widely used in almost all major city articles. There should be more opinions from other users in order to reach a consensus. Ssbbplayer (talk) 20:22, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments from WikiProject Cities editors could be helpful in resolving this dispute and achieving consensus on this issue. Ssbbplayer (talk) 18:16, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Inclusion of the daily mean in the Climate section weather box table

I have posted a request for comment on the Dodge City, Kansas article talk page: Talk:Dodge_City,_Kansas#Inclusion_of_the_daily_mean_in_the_Climate_section_weather_box_table. User:Guerrilla of the Renmin and I are in dispute over whether or not:

Daily Mean data should be included in the weather box table on U.S. city articles;
average temperature data available from National Weather Service websites is valid for populating the Daily Mean section of the table.

Comments from WikiProject Cities editors could be helpful in resolving this dispute and achieving consensus on this issue. FUBAR007 (talk) 14:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Jerusalem lead RfC

There is currently a request for comments open about the lead section of the Jerusalem article, and all editors are welcome to give their opinions. The dispute over the lead section is one of the oldest on Wikipedia, dating back to 2003, and focuses on whether or not it is neutral to say that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The discussion was mandated by the Arbitration Committee, and its result will be binding for three years. The discussion is located at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jerusalem, and will be open until 22 June 2013 (UTC). — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Are all settlements called city ?

In the scope it reads; "Cities" include municipalities and other civil divisions, including cities, towns, villages, hamlets, townships, unincorporated communities, sections of municipalities, and neighborhoods. Well this is something which I find hard to grasp. How can we see the names of NY City and a small hamlet in the very same list ? There must a be a lower limit of the concept of city and those settlements which fail to satisfy this creteria should be eliminated. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 18:45, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

There is a difference in the word city itself and the scope of this WikiProject. It might be better if this gets clarified and the scope is changed to: "This WikiProject aims primarily to provide information and a consistent format for cities of the world. For this WikiProject this includes municipalities and other civil divisions, including cities, towns, villages, hamlets, townships, unincorporated communities, sections of municipalities, and neighborhoods. " With the text change in italics. Maybe the name of the WikiProject is not perfect, but I do think it is fine to have the large scope. CRwikiCA talk 19:32, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

The term "City" is not easily defined. Even within a single country, each region may be different. For instance, all incorporated communities in North Dakota are called cities. In Massachusetts cities and towns are distinguished by the type of governance. In England cities are any settlements with a royal charter. This project is just a way to focus editors and get them to unify page presentation. What lower limit do you suggest and why should it have a different page layout? --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 19:36, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I am not a member of this project and I don't suggest any specific lower limit. But a population limit may be useful. (Like a city is settlement with a population of at least 100 000) Another limit may be municipality. In any case the present scope seems to be too wide. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 06:47, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

My favourite "city" is Soldier, Kansas, population 136. HiLo48 (talk) 07:35, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Nedim, you've been around Wikipedia long enough to know we don't just pick a number out of thin air. Unless you have some source that actually demonstrates a widely accepted distinction between city and municipality, I don't know what you are asking of us. I have been working with the city project for a long time and have never seen such a source. Additionally, I don't see that you have made any argument as to why the scope is too big other than you "find it hard to grasp". The link I provided above to the city page discuses the very issue of non-specificity of the term. I personally find the scope fine in that every article page that fits in that list should have the same page format and be guided by the same Wikiproject. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 05:27, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes I have been around WP long enough to observe the articles about the settlements. Please use the random article button. You'll see that about 10 % of the articles are about the so-called populated places. That makes 400000 articles. Supposing all are tagged for the project, wouldn't it be a bit too much ? I repeat, I am not a member of this project and I only want to be helpful. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 06:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

It is a big number of articles, but if the goal is to have a consistent lay-out, why would that be a problem? Of course it is not feasible for one or even a couple of editors to check over all articles in the WikiProject. It does however also provide guidance to people working on specific regional articles, which would be a more manageable subset of articles. CRwikiCA talk 13:42, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

This issue is not unique to this Wikiproject. WikiProject Biography has even more articles under its subset and will likley grow at a faster pace than this subset. I appreciate your feedback and agree that the issue of management needs to be considered. But as CRwikiCA points out, divesting different populated places into different wikiprojecst won't increase the number of editors managing these articles. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:31, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Paris#RfC

WikiProject members may be interesting in commenting on this issue.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 14:06, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

US Counties

Are US Counties within the scope of this project? Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 16:55, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

No. A county is not the same thing as a city. As there are already an overwhelmingly large amount of cities, large and small, in this project, including counties would be a clusterf**k of epic proportions. I would recommend against their inclusion. WTF? (talk) 19:20, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

There is a separate project for counties: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. counties Omnedon (talk) 19:37, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

That's what I thought, I'll carafy Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/U.S. municipality notes. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 02:51, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Sister cities

I would like to formally propose that the Sister cities section be removed from guidelines for city and settlement articles. Unfortunately, a good number of major city articles have extensive lists of sister or partner cities (often unsourced), with no indication of what makes them important. The sister city and partner city designation is already largely meaningless for many municipalities, and if nothing more can be said than "These are a list of this city's sister cities and partners:", they should not be included directly in the article. Without any suggestion of actual notable cooperation with sister cities, the section provides no information that helps readers understand the city better and clutters the article. So, instead I suggest the article have a link in the See also section to the relevant List of sister cities of X article (where X is the city itself or the state, country, or continent where the city is located). -- tariqabjotu 15:58, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

While you might make some good argument about the meaningless of a relationship between some single sister city pairings, trying to argue that the entire Twin towns and sister cities program is meaningless and thus deserving of a centralized call to removal all listings will not likely happen in my opinion. There are too many municipalities where the relationship is well established and plays some role in the character of that place. If you were by chance able to convince a few editors here and then go and try to implement it, you will get a lot of blow back from editors who actually edit these cities. That would not be consensus. Just my two cents. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 23:39, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

One possibility would be to create a "List of" page for all sister city relationships. That might be a way to organizing removal from the city pages. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 23:41, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

As I said, there are cities where sister city relationships have meaning and more can be said about them. An example I can think of is Paris and Rome (although, interestingly, the former does not mention the partnership). But there seems to be an understanding that these lists are a standard part of articles and should be included. Note, for example, the response I received when I removed these sister cities from the Rio de Janeiro article: such a list was reinstated for no other reason than virtually every city article on Wikipedia has this section. I don't know how to change such a pervasive culture, but I believe modifying Wikiproject guidelines to emphasize something more than "here is a list of cities" needs to be said about a city's partnerships to warrant inclusion within the article. Alternatively, or additionally, it should be emphasized that this should be placed somewhere else in the article in a prose format.

The list articles you speak of seem to already exist, often on national and continental levels (e.g. List of twin towns and sister cities in Argentina or List of twin towns and sister cities in South America), so that framework seems to already exist. I don't think what I'm suggesting here is particularly novel; bulleted lists are already discouraged in articles. -- tariqabjotu 02:45, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Hm, if the list already exists, than why not just move the mention in the city article to the "See also" section. There is a policy somewhere about having repetition of lists. I can dig for that if need be. It would be similar to "List of people from" pages, in that you shouldn't replicate the list on the city page if it exists as a separate list page. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 05:19, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

That's actually what I did. But the reversion was understandable, because sister cities are in city article guidelines and many (most?) articles slavishly include them without any context. I'm not going to go around Wikipedia removing sister cities on articles in a bot-like fashion; I just want some indication that this is not an essential part of a city article, the impression our articles and guidelines currently give. -- tariqabjotu 14:10, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

It seems that a widespread consensus did develop that noting such international relationships is a standard part of such articles. So, why should that consensus change? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:26, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, for one, I see no evidence such widespread consensus ever existed. This is just a practice that has become commonplace on city articles for no apparent reason, and the guidelines were initially written to reflect that. Thankfully, of the city article guidelines provided here, the U.S. and the Japanese guidelines are the only ones that have the sections. Some of the other guidelines seem to include it, but they make it clearer that it's not particularly important. For the U.S. guideline (which seems to be the best-written, and off which other guidelines are based), there was a brief discussion about this matter in 2008, after which the guideline was rephrased slightly to suggest the listing was optional (although, as noted there, the rewording is a bit ambiguous).

That being said, with the lack of any strong consensus either way or any serious discussion about this matter, I think it is more than appropriate to at least raise the point. As I said, yes, there are some cities for which their partnerships say something about the city, and that's fine. But there are many where they do not, and this is a simple, small step we can take to changing the culture that perpetuates these lists, without cause, in city articles. Note that the "Notable residents" sections seem to have organically fallen out of favor in city articles (despite still being in guidelines, interestingly), likely because they were also lists that didn't reveal much about the city (although they were probably even less useful and even longer). -- tariqabjotu 16:17, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I thought the last problem was with the use of flag icons not the sister city/twin town sections. The logic behind twinning arrangements is not so clear, but one might privately guess why a historic spa town is paired with other historic spa towns or a why a port is twinned with other ports. There are often regular events connected with twinning, so the information can occasionally be useful. I fear that centralised lists cannot be properly maintained, which is why it is a good idea to have both the lists and the separate entries in the article (as a check). Mathsci (talk) 16:42, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Multiple editors over multiple articles and project pages, over multiple years have evidenced the consensus. These city authorities make these international agreements for a reason, (including trade, commerce, culture, academic exchange, etc.) relating to their own city and nation, so it seems logical to note them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:34, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

For the United States see article and links at Sister Cities International. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:24, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Ugh. Alan, you are doing your darndest to show how fruitless even raising a simple point is. You seem content repeating that a mythical consensus was developed, with no indication where and when that was achieved. And your suggestion that it was achieved by "multiple editors over multiple articles and project pages, over multiple years" is a blatant excuse for not addressing the point.

I pointed you to a discussion, however brief, where there was agreement to at least lessen the importance of sister cities in a guideline. And some of the other city guidelines have omitted the section altogether, although not necessarily intentionally. So, there certainly isn't a consensus as pervasive as the one you suggest. As far as I can see, searching through the archives of this project -- which seems to be the main one devoted to cities -- the issue of the importance of this section itself (as opposed to just tangential issues like flag icons or government sources) has rarely been discussed, with a very small handful of people objecting.

I have no doubt there are cities for whom the partnerships are important -- I too have seen cities that have erected monuments noting their partner cities. And I have no doubt that one might learn something by the cities with which they consider partners. But that information is rarely in city articles, abiding by a WP:CITY guideline (not to mention a culture) that says sister cities may simply be listed in alphabetical order. So look at Haifa#Twin towns - sister cities, for example. From that list, and the seven words that preface them, what do you learn about Haifa's partnership with Portsmouth? Can you surmise why this partnership exists? Would you guess it's because the Israeli Navy performed exercises in and around the city? No, probably not, because that information is not in the article. And unfortunately, the deficiency in the Haifa article is not a one-off case; most articles, even for major, global cities, just contain a list and no other remarks that describe those other cities.

Even superficial comparisons (e.g. a port town choosing another port town) cannot be made unless that the common characteristic is actually mentioned. How is one supposed to know that Bergen is a major port city (which may or may not be the reason Seattle selected it as a port town) unless that's actually stated in the Seattle article? Background knowledge? Clicking through to the article? And what do we learn about Seattle from that again? What do we learn about the way this partnership manifests itself (if at all)?

This version of the New York City article, on the other hand, is a decent (although still far from perfect) way to provide some context. That is the direction these sections, where they exist, should go. And when nothing more useful can be said (or nothing more useful wants to be written) than Here is a list of sister cities, a link to one of the relevant list articles should be provided instead.

Now, I don't know the best way to encourage editors to write more prose on sister cities. Perhaps removing the Sister cities section altogether from city article guidelines and hoping editors on individual articles would use their best judgment as expected elsewhere would do it. Alternatively, and maybe this would be more effective, we could rewrite the Sister cities section (and add it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Settlements: Article structure) to say the article needs to elaborate beyond a simple list to warrant inclusion in the main article. But to outright dismiss this query because 'it's been discussed years ago somewhere else that I refuse to point to' is not acceptable. -- tariqabjotu 22:29, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, I am not trying my darndest to do anything. In a way you seem to be at cross purposes in that either the mention is given too much weight or it is given too little in your view, but you reject the evident status quo that it is in general just fine. The links among these cities are noted and in the appropriate place where people would look to where a city fits in the world, its article -- but it's always a balance of how much detail is enough without going overboard. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:56, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Tariqabjotu, I've come up with a compromise on the Rio de Janeiro article; a collapsible wikitable. What do you think?

Best Regards -- Marek.69^talk 01:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Sure, that looks better, but this isn't a issue about making that particular article look better; it's about changing a culture where a list of sister cities, on its own, is informative and a useful thing to include. I don't believe I have cross purposes here. If there is more to say about a city's partnerships beyond "Here is a list of them", the can be included (with that explanatory prose); otherwise, they should be omitted, relegated to a See also link. -- tariqabjotu 18:18, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Reaching consensus through editing is no less consensus (WP:CON#Reaching consensus through editing). And that in no way precludes us from discussion the issue and attempting to reach a new consensus. Consensus does not mean case closed.

I think the simple fact is that many of the sister city lists fail to implement the guidelines for Wp:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists. Specifically, no lead, no explanation of notability, no pros explaining relationship, no citations. For similar lists like 'Lists of notable people from...', an assumption is made that these poorly developed lists are just place holders for further development. The difference with sister city lists is that there may not be anymore expansion. The pairings don't necessary serve any notable relationship. They may be nothing more than a political maneuver at a single point in time that even then was not notable.

So a question to ask: Does a sister city relations alone constitute WP:Notability?

If not, I think sister city relationships should only be mentioned in the city article if there is significant pros discussing the relationship. Otherwise, a "See also" link to the separate List of...page should suffice. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 05:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

You are likely correct about the why for of the placeholder. But notability is not required for the inclusion of info in a notable topic (ie., the article topic needs to be WP:notable, but not every sentence), although verifiability is required (for example, for these article sections, it would be fine to cite what some may want to argue over are "primary sources"). There is an assumption that guidelines will be read together but if the concern is that they are not, then a simple pointer to the other guideline would be fine. We also need to avoid being too proscriptive in guideline writing so that normal article development and content creation is not short-circuited and distracted from by arguments over mere form. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:47, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

True enough. I guess I was looking at the issue a bit differently. I was thinking of these lists as a separate consideration for each city and that those lists without mention of relevance were no more than WP:Trivia. In that, if they are simply listed with no mention as to why they are notable for the city, then they are simply meaningless trivia lacking notable mention in their own right. In order to take this view you would have to look at the inclusion of a sister city list for each city separately and as a separate issue not guided by what is true for other cities where the relationship is notable. Thus the editors of each city are left to make a decision of what is appropriate for their article. I think this project should simply acknowledge that and give guidance that includes the option of using the "See Also" section for lists that cannot be expanded due to lack of adequate citations. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 23:16, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to join a discussion

Through this way, I inform I inform there is a discussion at WT:Disambiguation about partially disambiguated titles, known as "PDABs". This subguide of WP:D affects articles in this WikiProject, (Cork (city) and New York (city) have been mentioned in the past). There you can give ideas or thoughts about what to do with this guideline. Note this discussion is not to modify any aspect of this WikiProject naming conventions. Thanks. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 01:08, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Anniversaries

Need help with Talk:Cape_Canaveral,_Florida#50th_anniversary.2C_51st.2C_52nd.2C_etc.. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 12:05, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Bridgehampton, N.Y.

I am a newcomer to Wikipedia Talk, and a foreigner (British) to boot. I was reading the Wikipedia article about Bridgehampton, N.Y., and was very surprised to find that nowhere was it mentioned that the hamlet (village?) of that name is physically situated on Long Island. Everything administrative, historical and official was provided, including its location in Suffolk County, N.Y. But the more glaringly obvious physical fact of Long Island was tacitly ignored. Even the small-scale census map provided failed to include the name Long Island. Am I alone in finding that (a) perverse and (b) unhelpful to Wikipedia users? Is it part of a general Wikipedia policy?

William Longland — Preceding unsigned comment added by William Longland (talk • contribs) 11:35, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! Feel free to include the fact that it is on Long Island in the body of the text. Because Long Island is not an official subdivision, there is no reason for it to occur in the infobox. Note that the map only lists names used by the US Census Bureau, which might (I don't know) not use Long Island. It might be good to read WP:BOLD to judge what you want to edit. Also note that Wikipedia is not complete and that when you see missing information from articles you are welcomed to add it. As a last note, it is customary on talk pages to sign your comments by using ~~~~, so others know who says what. CRwikiCA talk 13:38, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

"Downtown"

Thanks for the heads up. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 22:48, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move for Lorca

There's a move request to place Lorca at Lorca, Spain to avoid ambiguity of the title with Federico García Lorca. Diego (talk) 09:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE at Salem, Missouri

There apparently was a dog bite case in the above town a few months back that attracted some attention from Inside Edition. Some local editors have grabbed onto it and have been pushing for a large section regarding it in the above article. It seems so silly to me, but apparently I am about the only one from outside the town that watches the article. Could some experienced city-article editors please stop by the talk page and offer an opinion and possibly make an appropriate edit? Thanks. Gtwfan52 (talk) 03:58, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll take a look. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 07:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

The issue appears to be resolved--Dkriegls (talk to me!) 00:15, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Durham NC is

Durham NC is also located in Orange county in addition to Durham and Wake 71.20.227.177 (talk) 23:28, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

The article for Durham, North Carolina reflects this information: "It is the county seat of Durham County,[6] though portions also extend into Wake County in the east and Orange County in the west". It is not clear what you are requesting by mentioning this information here. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 00:11, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Current events

There has been an ongoing debate at Steubenville, Ohio about the relative weight a current event should have in a settlement article. The city article guidelines do not address this. If anyone would care to participate in the discussion, please see Talk:Steubenville, Ohio. Perhaps the outcome there could be used to add something to the city article guidelines on the subject. John from Idegon (talk) 23:53, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll take a look. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 00:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

World city population lists

It seems to me we have too many world population lists i.e. List of urban agglomerations by population (United Nations), List of cities proper by population, World's largest municipalities by population, List of agglomerations by population and List of urban areas by population. Whilst it is accepted that these are not all measuring the same thing and that there will be differences between city limits and wider urban areas, do we really need 5 separate articles for this. Could the metropolitan/urban area/agglomeration lists be combined into one article? Perhaps this topic has been discussed before? Eldumpo (talk) 14:45, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, first I think you should tag the respective articles so those editors can participate. The List of cities proper by population and World's largest municipalities by population seem like two lists that should logically combine, especially since the municipalities list defines itself as a city proper list: "list of the world's most populous municipalities, defined according to the concept of city proper." Unfortunately, they both use widely differing population numbers. Example: Shanghai is either 17,836,133 or 25,019,148 and is either the largest or second largest depending on which list you look at. I think the two lists should be combined and if there are two differing measures being used, they should be reflected with parallel columns, not separate lists. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 11:06, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

As for the List of urban agglomerations by population (United Nations), List of agglomerations by population, and List of urban areas by population; they seem to be using different numbers, but the difference might also be due to the fact that they are using data from three different years. The numbers are close enough that they might just be a year to year difference, in which case, we should only be creating a list for the most recent year of the data. If the three data sets are different and worthy of inclusion, then we should create an all in one list that reflects the three different calculation methods. (example: List of countries by GDP (nominal)). --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 11:06, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for response. I have since tagged the talk pages of the articles and asked a couple of other editors to post here. I have also noticed that the municipality article was previously put up for AfD and the decision was Redirect/Merge. Eldumpo (talk) 10:06, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes. The encyclopedia tends to be a bit almanac-y, despite warning not to be "merely a list." I would support Afd. If you think a list is particularly non-noteworthy, please don't let a prior failed Afd stop you, though a delay of six months might be appropriate. While we are not supposed to canvass, I would, nevertheless, like to be informed of the nomination. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 21:26, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Skip the AfD - there was already consensus to merge or redirect, so just do it. Ego White Tray (talk) 15:27, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I've made a post at World's largest municipalities by population about redirect/merge. Post there if you want to make specific comments, or if you agree with the proposal you could start merging sourced comments. Eldumpo (talk) 21:45, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

My comment at World's largest municipalities by population, with a few additions:

World's largest municipalities by population was started in order to reflect the exact official population within city limits. This list would be superfluous if List of cities proper by population would reflect the exact official population within city limits, as its intro claims, and as defined by City proper, i.e. a "locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government", or the area within the city limits.

However, the List of cities proper by population does not always do that. It often counts sometimes arbitrary core districts, or other subdivisions of populated places, to adjust for cities that have - in the eyes of some editors - boundaries that are drawn too wide, and to avoid a list where Chinese cities "would rank disproportionately high on the list." On the other hand, the list also gives the city proper population for places like Lagos which are not a single municipality, have therefore no joint city administration, and hence no legally fixed boundaries.

Some examples for the arbitrary counting of core districts are Shanghai, Beijing, or Guangzhou, while the much larger (in area) neighboring Shenzhen is reflected by total population within city limits.

Occasionally, data in List of cities proper by population are blatantly OR. For instance, the list defines the alleged core districts of Beijing as "Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Fengtai, Shijingshan, and Haidian," without giving a reference. Then, it goes into CITYPOPULATION.DE, extracts the population figures for each district, adds them up, and presents them as the city proper population. Why go through these contortions while official census data are readily available? No wonder the resulting number is about half of what it officially is. No wonder people are confused and complain that there are too many lists with differing numbers if each list invents a new and different yardstick.

Sure, Chinese cities are drawn wide. Some western scholars think Chinese cities are drawn too wide, while Chinese are perfectly happy with their cities. Lagos sure looks like a city. These are valid opinions. These opinions don't give us the right to change official facts.

List of cities proper by population rewrites demography and geography to reflect what some think it should be. The facts are what they are. WP needs to reflect facts, not opinions. Many attempts to correct this un-encyclopedic approach, and to compile a list that delivers what its title promises, were denied.

World's largest municipalities by population was created after a long discussion, and after editors of List of cities proper by population claimed that municipalities are different than cities (municipalities are not always cities, but cities are always municipalities), and after they recommended to go away and to create a separate list for municipalities. This was done.

I have always been for merging as User:Dkriegls proposes (one column for the sometimes arbitrary core districts, one column for the exact official population within city limits)). However, this was not accepted at List of cities proper by population. I still am for a merge as defined above, but I am strongly opposed to a redirect. If necessary, I will support a deletion of both articles for the sake of peace. BsBsBs (talk) 14:11, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

P.S.: I have not been editing World's largest municipalities by population for a while. I just notice that for the second time, large parts of the article have been wiped out by the same editor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=World's_largest_municipalities_by_population&diff=next&oldid=519968694

And:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=World's_largest_municipalities_by_population&diff=591079896&oldid=590922969

If the article sounded ridiculous, now you know why. Restored. BsBsBs (talk) 19:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)-

If, as BsBsBs indicated, there is OR going into these numbers, by all means feel free to merge and use verifiable information. No need for AfD in my opinion, OR alone should motivate us to use Be Bold initiative to clean these lists up. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 04:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Some discussion is occurring at [7] regarding merging the metro list into the city proper list, although there are only two of us in the discussion, so need more input. I will direct the other people who originally posted above to the discussion. Eldumpo (talk) 19:29, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

My comment.

World's largest municipalities by population would not be needed and would be immediately deleted if List of cities proper by population would be a List of cities proper by population. Sadly, it is not. You don't even have to read the data. All you have to do is read its introduction. It admits that List of cities proper by population is in total violation of Wikipedia's core principles. To wit:

“This is an attempt to list the most populous cities in the world defined according to a concept of city proper. A city proper is a locality defined according to legal or political boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government. A city proper may not include suburbs.”

The reader assumes to get a list of populations within the boundaries of cities.

"World Urbanization Prospects", a United Nations publication, defines the population of a city proper as "the population living within the administrative boundaries of a city." The book continues to say that "city proper as defined by administrative boundaries may not include suburban areas where an important proportion of the population working or studying in the city lives."

The reader again assumes to get a list of populations within the boundaries of cities.

However, should the reader proceed (most have long skipped the intro and headed to the list), the reader will find a surprise.

“However, several cities on this list do not follow this definition because it is potentially misleading."

The authors admit that they mislead the reader. Why compile a list, if its list definition is misleading? The article claims that the world's demographers, who, under the auspices of the United Nation, year after year agree that the population of a city proper is "the population living within the administrative boundaries of a city" are misleading us.

For example, many cities in China govern a territory that extends well beyond the traditional "city proper" into suburban and rural areas, and sometimes even include other smaller places that are also called "cities." "

Definition of “traditional city proper?" Do "World Urbanization Prospects." or the many given sources for “city proper” say it is not allowed to contain suburban and rural areas? No, they don’t. Sure, Chinese cities traditionally have wider boundaries than those in North Dakota, or that of Soldier, Kansas (thank you for that). There are no right or wrong cities. Only different ones. The “traditional city proper” is a (misguided) POV of the authors.

“Going strictly by the administrative definition of a city, the cities of China would rank disproportionately high on the list.”

So that’s the reason. We fudge the inclusion criteria to discredit cities of a certain country.

“For the purposes of this list, the definition of a city as a primarily urban locality is used. The goal is to provide a set of population figures that can be compared reasonably and informatively to one another.”

This list contradicts its stated goal. By using different criteria, a reasonable comparison is no longer possible. And why doesn't it rename itself to "List of primarily urban localities by population"?

“This list enumerates the populations of some of the world's largest cities, the boundaries of which may or may not correspond to those of municipalities.

And finally, complete nonsense. The boundaries of cities always are those of municipalities, because a city, a village, a hamlet, or a whole city state all are municipalities.

The populations listed are not necessarily for the administratively defined city and may be for the urban area, the metropolitan area, or one of countless variations of municipalities as indicated in the Definition column.”

It is accepted among geographers and demographers that “city proper”, “urban agglomeration”, and “metropolitan area” are the three basic concepts used to define urban areas and their populations, and that they may not be confused. List of cities proper by population confuses the basic concepts, and the reader.

It uses highly questionable Original Research to push an admitted POV. Its claims are not verifiable. The list fails all three of Wikipedia’s core content policies. BsBsBs (talk) 16:41, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Albany, Vermont

Apparently, I should have posted here, in "talk", rather than editing the Albany, Vermont "History" section. My apologies. I just wanted to note that there was a "History of Albany, Vermont, 1806-1991" published (circa 1992?), edited by Virginia Wharton. I am attempting to find out if the Vermont Historical Society has a copy of this book and some formal reference. Trlong01 (talk) 15:52, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

It does exist, unfortunatly Google Books doesn't have a digital copy. Amazon has it here for $30 used, or you could support this Independent Vermont Bookseller and buy it for $40 here. Of course getting it through your historical society is a good bet. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Capital Hill or Capitol Hill ?

Is the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands "Capital Hill" or "Capitol Hill"? Please weigh in at Talk:Capital Hill, Saipan if you care. — AjaxSmack 22:59, 11 January 2014 (UTC)